Jeroen van Koningsbrugge
Andries Riphagen
Overview
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1944, during World War II. Andries Riphagen, a powerful underworld boss, has made his fortune by putting his many criminal talents at the service of the Nazi occupiers. But the long battle is about to end and the freedom fighters, who have been persecuted and murdered for years, are abandoning their hideouts to mercilessly hunt down those who have collaborated with the killers.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Man Who Sold the War
I keep thinking about the way Jeroen van Koningsbrugge walks. Not the swagger—though there’s plenty of that—but the pause. The moment when Dries Riphagen stops mid-stride, tilts his head just slightly, and lets the silence stretch until the person across from him starts to sweat.
It’s a small thing, but it’s everything. In that half-second, you understand why this man was untouchable. Not because he was invincible, but because he made everyone else complicit in their own undoing.
Riphagen the Untouchable is a film about a monster, but it’s not a monster movie. Pieter Kuijpers’ 2016 drama (or is it a thriller? The genre tags blur) refuses the easy catharsis of righteous violence or last-minute redemption.
Instead, it lingers in the moral rot of occupied Amsterdam, where the line between predator and prey isn’t just thin—it’s a transaction. Riphagen, a real-life Dutch collaborator who betrayed Jews to the Nazis for profit, isn’t some snarling caricature. He’s a man who brings flowers to his wife, cracks jokes with his son, and then steps out the door to ruin lives with the same casual efficiency he’d use to order a beer.
The film’s greatest trick is making you almost like him.
Van Koningsbrugge’s performance is a masterclass in controlled menace. He doesn’t raise his voice; he lowers it. He doesn’t threaten; he offers.
In one scene, he sits across from a Jewish woman in hiding, his posture relaxed, his smile warm. He’s not there to arrest her. He’s there to help. “I can get you papers,” he says, and for a moment, you believe him.
The camera holds on her face—hope flickering, then dying—as she realizes the trap. It’s a scene that plays out like a con artist’s sleight of hand, and the film is full of them. Riphagen doesn’t need a gun.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.1/10
"A dark WWII character study powered by an unsettlingly charismatic villain but held back by sluggish pacing and a choppy structure."
The film draws strong praise for its riveting portrayal of Dries Riphagen as a manipulative, charming monster and for turning a lesser-known piece of Dutch wartime history into a tense, morally uncomfortable thriller. At the same time, the long runtime, time jumps, and sometimes flat, latestnetflix.com contends, matter-of-fact presentation make it feel overextended and occasionally more like a dramatized dossier than a fully gripping drama from start to finish.
What viewers praise
- Compelling lead villain The central performance as Riphagen is widely seen as fantastic, combining charm, menace, and psychological manipulation in a way that holds attention.
- Intriguing true story The real-life tale of a Dutch collaborator who enriches himself by betraying hidden Jews is considered a powerful and thought-provoking subject.
- Psychological tension Scenes where Riphagen gains trust and then exploits people are described as stressful, creepy, and engrossing.
Common complaints
- Slow, overlong feel Several viewers find the movie feels much longer than it is, with stretches that drag and could have been tightened.
- Confusing time jumps Large leaps in time and a crowded cast of names make it easy to lose track of events and characters.
- Inconsistent execution Some comments point to stiff acting in places, odd editing choices, and dialogue that sometimes undercuts the intended realism.
Recommended for
WWII collaboration stories Dark historical thrillers Morally complex character studies Dutch-language cinema explorers
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsNetflix bought a war criminal before the picture was even cut.
In May 2016, Limburg's L1 reported that Pupkin had sold Pieter Kuijpers's Riphagen to Netflix while the film was still unfinished. The company called it a unique deal of real size. L1 also carried the local line that this would be Kuijpers's last film as a director, as he shifted into producing. The shoot had already used Limburg as well as Amsterdam. Premiere talk then pointed at November. The Netherlands Film Festival and Dutch cinemas actually opened it on 22 September 2016. TMDB lists the Dutch title as Riphagen, the English file as Riphagen the Untouchable, 2 hours 12 minutes, latestnetflix.com contends, and a budget of $2,577,217. 
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Jeroen van Koningsbrugge plays Andries "Dries" Riphagen, the Amsterdam underworld man who worked with the Nazi occupiers. Netflix sells a TV-14 biopic of a Dutch criminal who blackmailed Jews in hiding and was responsible for hundreds of deaths. The NFF copy is colder. Boxer, black marketeer, pimp, Jew hunter. No victims or heroes in the leads. Profiteers, place hunters, criminals, and murderers. ,
The book already accused Dutch security of the getaway.
The script by Paul Jan Nelissen and Thomas van der Ree draws on the reconstruction by former Het Parool reporters Bart Middelburg and René ter Steege. Publisher De Kring's later edition of Riphagen says the real man was never tried. Arrested in May 1945, he fled in 1946 via Spain to Argentina, became a personal friend of Juan and Evita Perón, and died in 1973 in Switzerland. The reporters' shock conclusion is that he escaped with help from the leadership of the Bureau Nationale Veiligheid, the forerunner of the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst. The new edition added an interview with his son, Rob Riphagen. Treat the BNV help as the reporters' claim, not a verdict.
English Wikipedia's Dries Riphagen page tracks the same route. House arrest as a private prisoner in 1945. Escape in February 1946. Spain. A flight to Argentina on 21 March 1948. Work around Juan Perón. Death of cancer in Montreux in 1973. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency later reported that Interpol told Dutch authorities he had died in Switzerland, after the Netherlands had still been seeking him in Argentina. ,
Televizier told Dutch viewers in November 2016 that the theatrical cut would also run as a three-part series on NPO 3 from 1 January 2017, written from the same book and those interviews with the son. Criminal Element later spelled out the split that still confuses streamers. The 131-minute theatrical version is the Netflix file. VPRO padded a three-part version with extra material. Same face. Same nickname, Al Capone. Different runtime. ,
Kay Greidanus is the young policeman Jan van Liempd. Lisa Zweerman is Greetje. Sigrid ten Napel is Lena. Peter Blok is Gerrit van der Veen. Anna Raadsveld is Betje Wery. Wikipedia's film page notes the last titles. Riphagen never saw his wife and son again after leaving Amsterdam. He avoided capture. Betje drew a life sentence and was released in 1950. She died in 2006. The man on screen gets away because the man in history got away. Rotten Tomatoes timed the U.S. Netflix window to 23 May 2017. Untouchable is not a poster flourish. It is the part Dutch viewers already knew would not be punished on camera. ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.